Lethal Injection / 1 Hit Infec..

Key Cards: Primordial Hydra/ Tainted Strike

Strategy is to attempt to ramp into a 4/4 Hydra by turn 3, and then trample in Turn 4 or 5 for the poison counter win. If you hit everything just right (including a morbid Hunger) you can 1 shot an infect win on turn 4. I can't imagine somebody surviving for more than 7-8 turns unless they hit stupid amounts of creature removal and you cant hit anything to stop it, and only manage to drop 1 hydra by turn 7.

Everything else is really just for ramping or to be slightly distracting from my hydra, Skinshifter functions as a pretty sweet blocker. My strategy is, if possible, to not even hint that i'm going for an infect win until I smash in for 10 poison counters all at once, which is why I don't run inkmoths. I would prefer that my opponent believe I am going to try and smash in for 20 damage all at once or something, and then not really sweat a 10-point over trample because they think they have another turn left and then BAM! tainted strike for the win.

Now, that big surprise is only going to work the first time, so rather than using my sideboard to adjust to whatever my opponent is running, I think its best to try and utilize the sideboard to adjust to the fact that he now knows what I am up to.

Sideboard helps cope with swords, other annoying enchantments/spells, disentomb helps get back on the horse if they manage to push a creature removal through (not just for hydra, but those also those annoying early game snipes that kill my birds and llanowars), and gruesome deformity is a hilarious turn of events if somebody isn't running green and lags a deathtouch creature back to block or thinks that they can just block me with 4 creatures. I have also included some cards to try and score a couple extra poison counters so that perhaps I won't have to wait so long to get through with the hydra. I would swap out the Viridian for plague stinger on the second round, but you might prefer to swap out Skinshifter. I think it best to leave a 4/4 trample rhino option or 2/2 flyer option in addition to the plague stinger, especially if you enchant shifter with Phyresis.

Anyhow, that's my two-cents. If you have any ideas about protect the Hydra better, or run a sideboard that adapts to the loss of surprise better, by all means drop me a comment. What I would really like to see happen is to set up a sideboard where I swap for all 15 cards and have a deck with an entirely different feel for them to have to cope with round 2. So if you have any ideas, let me know. I'd love to hear some feedback!

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